Demographics: people and markets

The basics of demography are now basic to us business as well. Demographics combine demographic data with socioeconomic and geographic factors to help business and other managers know the market for their goods and services. This pamphlet explains market, product, and site analyses, discusses data sources and resources, and includes case studies involving major corporations. Post-war population trends have had an enormous impact on consumer and labor markets, bringing home to business the importance of taking advantage of demographic shifts. Advances in computerized access to data describing changes and increased consciousness of their economic significance has spurred the application of demographic knowledge by managers and the growth of the demographics information industry. The pamphlet describes the resources and methods of demographics including the creation and use of demographic data products.     

World population in transition

The world's population growth rate peaked at slightly over 2%/year in the late 1960s and in 1986 is down to 1.7% and falling. Annual numbers added continue to rise because these rates apply to a very large base, 4.9 billion in 1986. According to UN medium variant projections, world population growth will peak at 89 million/year in the late 1990s and then taper off until world population stabilizes in the late decade of the 21st century at about 10.2 billion. Close to 95% of this growth is occurring in less developed countries (LDCs) of Africa, Asia (minus Japan), and Latin America. LDC fertility rates are declining, except in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America and South Asia, but most have far to go to reach the replacement level of 2.1 births/woman. Fertility is below replacement in virtually all more developed countries. For LDCs, large numbers will be added before stabilization even after attainment of replacement level fertility because of the demographic momentum built into their large and young population bases. This complicates efforts to bridge gaps between living standards in LDCs and industrialized countries. From a new debate about whether rapid population growth deters or stimulates economic growth, a more integrated view has emerged. This view recognizes the complementary relationship between efforts to slow population growth and other development efforts; e.g., to improve health and education, upgrade women's status, increase productivity. Most effective in the increased contraceptive prevalence and fertility declines seen in many LDCs has been the combination of organized programs to increase access to family planning information and supplies with socioeconomic development that enhances the desire for smaller families.     

Global QUALITY OF LIFE (QOL), health and ability are primarily determined by our consciousness. Research findings from Denmark 1991–2004

Objective: To explain the global quality of life (QOL) from 2000 indicators representing all aspects of life. Design and setting: Two cross sectional population studies, one prospective cohort study and one retrospective cohort study. Participants: (1) Representative sample of 2500 Danes (18–88 years), (2) 7222 members of the Copenhagen Perinatal Birth Cohort 1959–1961 (31–33 years), (3) 9.006 mothers and their 8820 children born in Copenhagen 1959–1961, (4) 746 Danes (55–66 years). Main outcome measures: Global QOL measured by SEQOL (self evaluation of QOL) containing eight global QOL measures: Well-being, life-satisfaction, happiness, fulfilment of needs, experience of temporal and spatial domains, expression of lifes potentials and objective factors. Results: 2000 associations; strongest between QOL and health, ability, the personal philosophy of life, the relationships to oneself, the partner and friends; weakest between QOL and 1000 early life factors, 1000 life events and 100 objective factors like income. Conclusions: Quality of life is associated with personal health and attitude towards life, rather than objective factors, life style, or life events. We conclude that QOL can be developed independently and thus be used as medicine.     

Longitudinal Mediators of Relations Between Family Violence and Adolescent Dating Aggression Perpetration

Few longitudinal studies have examined the pathways through which family violence leads to dating aggression. In the current study the authors used 3 waves of data obtained from 8th‐ and 9th‐grade adolescents (N = 1,965) to examine the hypotheses that the prospective relationship between witnessing family violence and directly experiencing violence and physical dating aggression perpetration is mediated by 3 constructs: (a) normative beliefs about dating aggression (norms), (b) anger dysregulation, and (c) depression. Results from cross‐lagged regression models suggest that the relationship between having been hit by an adult and dating aggression is mediated by changes in norms and anger dysregulation, but not depression. No evidence of indirect effects from witnessing family violence to dating aggression was found through any of the proposed mediators. Taken together, the findings suggest that anger dysregulation and normative beliefs are potential targets for dating abuse prevention efforts aimed at youth who have directly experienced violence.     

Quality of Life as Medicine: Interventions that Induce Salutogenesis. A Review of the Literature

This paper reviews the medical (salutogenic) effect of interventions that aim to improve quality of life. Review of studies where the global quality of life in chronically ill patients was improved independently of subjective and objective factors (like physical and mental health, yearly income, education, social network, self-esteem, sexual ability and problems or work). The methods used were subtypes of integrative medicine (non-drug CAM) like mind body medicine, body psychotherapy, clinical holistic medicine, consciousness-based medicine and sexology. In about 20 papers on QOL as medicine, in cancer, coronary heart disease, chronic pain, mental illness, sexual dysfunction, low self-esteem, low working ability and poor QOL, the most successful intervention strategy seems to be to create a maternal, infantile bonding induced by a combination of conversation therapy and bodywork. The papers examined the treatments of over 2,000 chronically ill or dysfunctional patients and more than 20 different types of health problems. Global QOL measured by SEQOL, QOL5, QOL1, self-rated physical health, self-rated mental health, self-rated sexual functioning, anorgasmia, genital pain, self-rated working ability, self-rated relation to self, well-being, life-satisfaction, happiness, fulfillment of needs, experience of temporal and spatial domains, expression of life’s potentials, and objective functioning. We found “QOL as medicine” able in the treatment of physical disorders and illnesses including chronic pain (Number Needed to Treat (NNT) = 1–3, Number Needed to Harm (NNH) > 500), in mental illness (NNT = 1–3, NNH > 500), in sexual dysfunctions (NNT = 1–2, NNH > 1,000), self-rated low working ability (NNT = 2, NNH > 500), and self-rated low QOL (NNT = 2, NNH > 2,000). We found that QOL improving interventions helped or cured 30–90% of the patients, typically within one year, independent of the type of health problem. “QOL as medicine” seems to be able in improving chronic mental, somatic and sexual health issues without side effects.     

Global QUALITY OF LIFE (QOL), health and ability are primarily determined by our consciousness. Research findings from Denmark 1991–2004

Social Indicators Research - Objective: To explain the global quality of life (QOL) from 2000 indicators representing all aspects of life. Design and setting: Two cross sectional population...     

EAP Service Use in a Managed Behavioral Health Care Organization: From the Employee Perspective

Contemporary employee assistance program (EAP) services are typically provided in broad-brush programs delivered by large external vendors in a network model. Yet research has not kept pace with EAP evolution, including in terms of how EAP clients themselves view services. We surveyed a random sample of EAP service users from a national provider (361 respondents). About one-third of respondents reported getting help for workplace issues. Most learned about the EAP through employer communications such as the company website. The large majority reported that the EAP helped them "a lot" or "some," suggesting they valued this benefit.     

Building stronger weak ties among a diverse pool of emergent nonprofit leaders of color

This article explores theoretical underpinnings of social capital and strong and weak ties as they relate to relationships within, between, and among six cohorts of promising nonprofit leaders of color in a northwestern U.S. city. Using mixed methods, including network analyses, it considers the impact and potential of a university‐community collaboration to deliver a program to promising emergent leaders nominated for their talent and commitment to the work of their community‐based organizations, often in competition for limited resources. The article considers the program's implicit effect on relationships and reveals intersector connections among alumni. Findings show substantial alumni movement among organizations, increasing the potential for collaboration and mentoring relationships. We conclude with recommendations for programs seeking long‐term impact and discuss a series of unanticipated findings and the questions they engender, many critical as communities and organizations become more diverse and social needs do not diminish.